Lowder seeking peace in SUSD

Superintendent aims to calm high school campuses with approach he used in Hemet

STOCKTON - Two years ago, ethnic tensions cast a shadow over Hemet High School. Off-campus fights between students erupted regularly. The Homecoming Court at the Southern California high school was uniformly blond-haired and blue-eyed.

STOCKTON - Two years ago, ethnic tensions cast a shadow over Hemet High School. Off-campus fights between students erupted regularly. The Homecoming Court at the Southern California high school was uniformly blond-haired and blue-eyed.

An immediate solution was needed, so Hemet Unified turned to a peacemaking program offered by the U.S. Department of Justice. Systematically, students from different ethnic backgrounds were taught how to work out their problems and get along. And today, according to Shaw, Hemet High is a much more tranquil place with a vastly improved vibe.

"It empowered students to speak up on their own behalf and be solution-oriented," Shaw said, adding that the programs that were put in place in 2010 "fostered teamwork ... and united the campus."

The Hemet Unified superintendent when the measures were taken was Steve Lowder. Now, six months into his tenure in Stockton Unified, Lowder is looking to use a similar approach to calm his new district's four comprehensive high schools.

The populations of Hemet High and the Stockton Unified schools are vastly different. In Hemet, about half the student population is white, and many issues revolved around a group of students who were skinheads.

Sixty percent of Stockton Unified students are Latino, and fewer than 10 percent are white. Tensions might not be rooted in ethnicity as they were in Hemet, but Lowder believes bringing together students who are at odds with each other can ease tensions regardless of the catalyst of their conflicts.

According to Stockton Unified data, there were 324 fights and 62 batteries at the comprehensive high schools in 2011-12, and there had been 79 fights and 12 batteries through early December of this academic year. Lowder said giving students the chance to fix problems will reduce the number of incidents.

"It comes down to the fact that kids are involved, they set up the parameters, they say, 'Here's what we want changed, what we want to do to make sure our schools are sanctuaries,' " Lowder said. "I'm hoping here we can replicate that (Hemet) experience."

The initial step for Stockton Unified will be to avail itself of the free help offered by the Justice Department's Community Relations Service, which provides guidance in calming community conflicts.

The ultimate goal, Lowder said, is for students at the high schools to learn to settle their disputes peacefully and on a peer-to-peer level. Adult facilitators and student leaders will receive specialized training from the Justice Department and from an outside consultant, assuming the school board approves Lowder's plans early in 2013.

The use of peer-to-peer mediation to solve school problems is a decades-old approach, but Chavez High Principal Will Nelson said he is optimistic it will improve the climate at his school.

Nelson said he can envision it as a means of reducing bullying and as a peaceful alternative to fighting. Gang tensions also could be targeted at some of the high schools, though Nelson said those sorts of issues have declined at Chavez the past two years.

"Whatever our kids are saying is the issue, we need to address," Nelson said. "I think we're leaving their voices out too much."

Nelson said the first step would be training by the Justice Department of adult facilitators, mainly young people who recently graduated from Chavez. These young adults then would imbue a 30-student advisory group from a cross section of the Chavez population with the conflict-resolution skills taught by the Justice Department.

The advisory group would identify the key problems at Chavez, then develop solutions. Additionally, in the spring, Chavez, Edison and Stagg highs would receive federal grant funding that will augment the training in peer-to-peer mediation - life lessons for students that go far beyond trying to achieve grade-level academic standards.

"Developing leadership, developing students' ability to resolve problems is a part of learning," said Lynn Beck, dean of University of the Pacific's Benerd School of Education. "I think it is something we need to never take for granted. It's a part of our responsibility as adults to kind of shepherd the next generation."

Two years after similar methods were applied at Hemet High, the school's principal said progress can be measured by the newfound diversity of this year's Homecoming Court.